How to identify your first 20 industrial targets
(without spending 6 months on the wrong ones).

Deeptech founders are typically good at many things. Identifying their industrial targets with precision is rarely one of them.

Not from lack of effort. Most have tried. They've listed sectors in pitch decks, had internal discussions about which industry to approach first, built a spreadsheet of company names. They've attended a conference or two and come back with a handful of business cards.

But a list of company names is not a target list. A sector is not a target. And a business card from a conference is not a qualified lead.

What's missing is structure. This article gives you a framework for going from a broad market intuition to a working shortlist of 20 named companies — and the right person inside each one.

Why most target lists are useless

The fundamental mistake is confusing market with target. A market is an abstraction. A target is a specific human being, in a specific function, with specific objectives, a budget they control, and a problem they need to solve before the end of the quarter.

"The pharmaceutical industry" employs millions of people across thousands of companies, with opposing interests, constraints, and purchasing logics. It includes everyone from the global R&D director of a €50 billion corporation to the quality manager of a family-owned contract manufacturer. Saying you target the pharmaceutical industry tells you nothing about where to spend the next three months.

A usable target list has three properties. It is finite — workable in 6 to 12 months. Each entry specifies a company, a function, and ideally a name. And each entry has a reason: why this person, at this company, right now.

Step 1: Narrow from sector to segment

Start with your technology's current, honest application range. Not the eventual total addressable market — what you can credibly deliver, in the next 18 months, at your current development stage.

Ask: which specific industrial problem does my technology address, for which specific type of operation?

If you're developing a sensor technology for structural monitoring, "construction" is not your segment. "Industrial asset operators running aging infrastructure under increasing regulatory inspection pressure" is. That distinction cuts the field by 90%.

From there, apply two filters in sequence.

The urgency filter. Which companies have a specific, near-term reason to care? Look for recent regulatory changes that affect them, public commitments to outcomes they haven't yet solved, failed internal projects in the same area, or visible signals of pain — negative press, documented incidents, executive statements at conferences. Urgency is the single most powerful predictor of a short sales cycle.

The access filter. Which companies have a demonstrated track record of engaging with early-stage startups? Check their open innovation programs, their accelerator partnerships, their startup supplier lists. A company with no history of startup engagement is three times harder to convert than one with an established process — regardless of how perfect the technical fit appears.

Step 2: Tier by company size and innovation role

Not all industrial players are equally suited to your development stage. Large global corporations have more budget, but slower cycles, more layers of approval, and more complex IP negotiations. Mid-sized companies — typically 500 to 5,000 employees — often combine sufficient budget with faster decision-making and real authority at the division level.

Within each company, distinguish two types of internal actors.

The technology scout. This is the person mandated to identify and qualify external technologies — typically sitting in an open innovation, corporate ventures, or R&D strategy function. They are easy to reach, quick to meet, and almost never have signing authority. They are a useful entry point, not a decision-maker.

The operational buyer. This is the person who owns the problem in production, process engineering, or applied R&D. They have a specific pain, a budget line, and the authority to commission a pilot or sign a collaboration agreement. They are harder to reach — but a conversation with them is worth ten with the scout.

Your list should include both types. Use the scout to get in the door. Get to the operational buyer before any serious conversation can begin.

Step 3: Build the list

The raw material for your list comes from five places that most founders underuse.

Conference speaker lists. Who presents on the industrial problem your technology addresses? These people are publicly engaged on the topic, visible, and often actively looking for solutions. A speaker at an industry conference on a problem you solve is a warm target before you've exchanged a word.

Patent databases. Who has filed patents in areas adjacent to yours? Companies investing in internal R&D on a problem are often open to external solutions that accelerate or complement their work — particularly if their filings show they understand the problem well but haven't solved it.

Tech transfer office networks. Academic technology transfer offices maintain curated relationships with industrial scouts at major companies in their sector. If your technology came out of a university environment, this is often your warmest and most direct entry point.

Your investors. If you've raised funding, your investors almost certainly have industrial LPs, corporate co-investors, or portfolio companies with relevant connections. Most founders leave this entirely untapped. A warm introduction from a shared investor shortens a typical sales cycle by months.

Job postings. A company actively hiring for a role related to your application area is a company with a problem and a budget. A pharmaceutical company posting a "continuous manufacturing process engineer" is a pharmaceutical company with money allocated to that challenge. This is real-time urgency signal — more reliable than any analyst report.

Step 4: Qualify, don't accumulate

Once you have 40 to 60 candidates, cut. The goal is not a comprehensive list. It is a workable one.

For each candidate, answer three questions. First: is there a specific person inside this company whose role is to solve the problem I address? Second: is there a recent trigger — a news event, regulatory change, public statement — that makes this urgent for them now? Third: do I have a plausible path to that person through a warm introduction, a shared network, or a conference?

Targets that don't pass all three are not targets. They are aspirations. Move them to a secondary list and revisit in six months.

What a finished target list looks like

A finished target list is not a spreadsheet of logos. It is 20 entries, each containing: the company name and relevant division; the specific problem they face that you address; the function and ideally the name of the right contact; your reason for believing this is live and urgent now; and your planned entry path.

This document is what makes the next three months productive rather than scattered. It is also something else: it signals to your interlocutors that you've done the work to understand their world, not just your technology. In deeptech commercial conversations, that signal matters more than you might expect.